In the pour house

Saturday

Less than two years after Rob Cohen and Jason Carriere opened Falling Sky Brewing House near downtown Eugene, the two are at it again.

Along with chef Corey Wisun, they recently opened Falling Sky Pour House Delicatessen at 790 Blair Boulevard, just south of the brewery blocks in Eugene’s Whiteaker neighborhood.

Falling Sky expanded sooner than planned, but the perfect spot beckoned — near the Laughing Planet Cafe and Sweet Life Patisserie — and Cohen and Carriere knew that if they didn’t act fast, they would miss out on a great opportunity, Cohen said.

The deli offers the same large selection of handcrafted beers and sodas on tap as its first location at 1334 Oak Alley, but a totally different menu, including breads and bagels; cured meats, such as pastrami; and other classic delicatessen items, such as latkes, and desserts, rugelach and babka, all made from scratch.

“Almost everything we serve we make in-house, so that leads to potentially exciting outcomes when you can really control everything you serve,” Cohen said.

“It made so much sense to us to combine beer and a deli. Briney meats and beer — that’s usually not a focus. It seemed like an obvious pairing for us and it’s something we don’t already have in town.”

In fact, there are only a few brew pub-deli combinations around the country, said Cohen, who operated several restaurants in Ithaca, N.Y., before moving to Eugene in 2001.

The deli’s location near Ninkasi Brewing Co., Hop Valley Brewing and Oakshire Brewing “is very exciting because there is a growing interest in craft beer culture,” Cohen said.

Falling Sky complements the bigger breweries that are more production-focused, he said.

“We’re more focused on a classic brewing house where it’s small-batch artisanal production, so we have our own niche,” he said. “We’ll have 20 different beers on tap between our two places.”

The deli also will serve barrel to tap Oregon wines, as well as Oregon spirits.

It was the 4,500-square-foot space formerly occupied by the Art of Glass stained glass store that caught Cohen’s eye late last year.

“I just heard from one of our managers that it was available,” he said. “There was no signage (indicating it was for lease.) So I went down there and I really fell in love with that space,” he said.

“It has a big south-facing wall of glass; I always start there,” he said, adding that the natural light in the Oak Alley location makes that space “vibrant and happy.”

“When I saw that we decided we might not get another space like that,” Cohen said. “That’s why we moved so quickly.”

By the first of the year, Falling Sky had signed a long-term lease with the building’s owners with five, five-year options for a total of 25 years.

Building improvements will cost $300,000, which the owners are financing from operations and an SBA loan through Summit Bank, Cohen said.

He and Carriere had always hoped to open a second location. It just happened more quickly than they had planned. But after expanding the brewery on Oak Alley last year, they had the infrastructure to support a second location, Cohen said.

“It sort of mitigates some of the risk,” he said. Plus, Falling Sky moved some functions from Oak Alley to Blair Boulevard, such as keg washing and soda brewing, which “eliminated some of the stress on the current space,” he said.

Falling Sky produced 850 barrels last year and could produce as much as 1,500 barrels this year, Cohen said.

The new deli seats 120 inside and 35 outside in the former loading dock space on the west side of the building.

The deli has 30 employees and is open daily 11 a.m. to midnight, Sunday to Wednesday, and 11 a.m. to 1 am., Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

When Cohen moved to Eugene a decade ago, the quirky Whiteaker neighborhood gave no sign that it would turn into a hub for breweries, wineries, restaurants and nightlife, he said.

“I always liked going to Sam Bond’s — that was before Ninkasi,” he said. “I kind of feel like Ninkasi set the course. It just sort of exploded and is a great business, and it really helped bring people down to the Whiteaker and give it that anchor point.”

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